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Book Eleven
Agamemnon holding his spear (or putting it down) while throwing stones.
Lorimer, HM 273, notes that the line implies a single (thrusting) spear,
since Agamemnon has no missiles but stones. Stone-throwing later devolved
on the yuuvnTes, Tyrtaeus fr. 11.35-6 West. |i£ydAoiai TE XEpHocSioicri:
the diminutive force of the suffix -iov is no longer present, cf. uccAcc ueycc
Oripiov {Od. 10.171), |i£ya TEIXIOV {Od. 16.165, where see Hoekstra on Od.
16.434). Genuinely diminutive forms are avoided by the epic.
265-89 These verses, together with 284-9, 678-92, 12.127-31, 12.190-
8, are contained in pap. 432 (P. Hamburg 153, dated to the latter half of
third century B.G.) which was not available to OCT. In this section there
are at least nine plus-verses, 266a-d, 266y-z, 272a, and 28oa-b; 281-3 are
omitted; see S. R. West, Ptolemaic Papyri 91-103, with literature. Variant
readings are noted below. Such papyri as this show the difficulty, and the
necessity, of the work of the Alexandrian scholars. Here the extra verses,
which defy restoration, would have added something to Agamemnon's
exploits before his ignominious departure.
266 dvf|vo0£v is generally taken to be the same verb as (hT)evf|vo6e
10.134, etc. In that case we assume a haplology, dvf)vo6e, with Frisk,
GEWi 517. The subject of (ETT-, KOCT-, dv-)f|vo0E is variously hair, a savour,
oil, dust, and here blood. If a connexion with dvOos is sustainable a sense
'sprout', 'spring up', > 'well up', could be posited for the present and 'be
risen over', > 'lie upon', 'cover', for the perfective forms. But we cannot be
certain that the singer had a clear idea of the sense and form of this epic
verb. The poet of the Ares-and-Aphrodite episode {Od. 8.365) certainly
misused the verb of the anointing oil of the gods, oil that covered their
bodies but did not well up from within; the same may be said of the dust at
[Hesiod], Aspis 269. In the present passage the anomalous formation does
not inspire confidence in a precise usage; in fact an imperfect sense 'while
the blood was welling up from his wound' best fits the context. Wyatt, ML
116-18, discusses this strange word, with bibliography.
Pap. 432 reads KEAaivsJcpES !£ cbTEiAf^s. However supplemented (e.g. O9p 3
IV dvf|vo0Ev ocTua ... Boiling, O9pa 8' dvr|vo0EV alua ... West) the sense will
not differ much from the paradosis. The remains of six plus-verses follow.
268 SOvov was obscure to Hellenistic readers and the schol. (bT) comment
on it (TTJV els |3d0os x^P 1 ! 0 " 00 ^ dAynSova £OT)|Jiav£v). TEipov (and
TEipEv in 272) of pap. 432 is a response to the difficulty.
269-72 The image of the woman in labour is a unique and memorable
simile which, coming at this point, is eloquent testimony to the range and
humanity of the poet's imagination. The immediate point of the simile is to
affirm that Agamemnon's body is racked with pain, but there is an inescapable
irony at several levels in the comparison. The great effort of the King
of Men ends with his being rushed off to his surgeons like a woman to her
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